7 Weeks Until "H" Day

"H" day meaning homeless day. Okay,,, I guess technically 7 weeks from tomorrow is homeless day. Give me a break, people are always so critical...

We have burned through 4 1/2 weeks of the 11 1/2 we had since shoring up the deal on the house. And although I know things have gotten done, it is starting to feel like nothing has yet been accomplished, and everything is left to do, ughhh!!! The garage sale went off with a blast. Its hard to believe that something like that would be that popular when its cold and snowy out, but we got rid of almost everything, and put another $1k in our pockets. Family members cleaned up most of the left over scraps, at the friends and family discount, (free), and the small little bit remaining went to the second hand store, so that someone else may find a good use for it. We still have a few things left, but they are needed for the transition, the boat refit, or are headed to the dump once we are done with them. Its hard to believe that in 6 weeks when we toss our mattress into the dump, that we will be moving into our camper, especially when I look out window and there is still a foot of snow on top of it. I guess its a little late now, but I am starting to wonder if the end of May might have been a tad bit warmer for moving out of the house???

So after the sale, it took a couple of days to get the shop back together, get rid of the left overs, and load the furniture that was going to my Daughter's place in Ottawa. Silly as it may sound, we also had to take everything that we had sorted out that we wanted to keep, and sort through it again. One to make sure, and two, to figure out where everything was going, boat/camper/storage/dump/etc.... That took as much time as getting ready for the sale in the first place. Then we started changing our address, did our taxes, made more lists, listed stuff for sale on Kijiji, and on and on and on.....

Oh, did I mention that I got my sewing supplies in from Sailrite. Thanks Colin, you are the man... I also bought more zippers to make more bags, made a list of all the things I have to make, and the weather is warming, so I'll be at the boat working soon. Just 4 more weeks in March oh Lord, I promise not to squander it like the last 4......

My daughter is a busy person, with somewhere between 3 and 5 jobs going on all the time, she works very hard, but that means that putting up with us lounging around her house is very inconvenient for her. Added to that, that we are never comfortable staying at someone else's house, we stayed in a hotel. And thanks to my sister Tish, we got the friends and family discount at the Marriott again, sweet! Spent Friday shopping, and Saturday being entertained by our Grandson Duke (a.k.a. Squirrel).

We hate to shop, but with our life in a constant transition over the last 3 years, retire/build house/refit boat/sell house, etc..., it seems that all we do is shop. And, again, we are buying stuff for our new life afloat. The highlight of the trip was our new snorkeling gear. I couldn't imagine going to the Bahamas and not having a good set of snorkeling gear. I am a part time fish; but I have landsman's eyes and fins, and have not yet mastered the breathing under water thing, so snorkeling gear it is.

As in most things, the quality of the gear is directly related to the quality of the experience. Now that doesn't mean paying to get gold plated is worth the cost, but there is a level at which the quality doesn't change much, but the price does, and we like to stay just below that level, maximizing quality while maintaining a reasonable price. Saying that, the stuff in this photo came out to $525 clams, including the weights for the belts that are still in the truck. Unfortunately, what we know about snorkeling, you could write on the head of the pin with a large font, so we refer to the experts. We usually find that the people working at a shop have the right expertise to help us in the selection. Of course, you never want to try this with a computer geek, because nothing but top of the line seems reasonable to them. And then there is the car salesman.......

Everything else we bought was just little bits here and there, a pair of pants, collapsible water jugs, spice containers, sleeping bags. Its hard to go crazy buying stuff for a little boat, with little spaces.

The real excitement last week though was that our Garhauer came in. Ohhhhh Baby.....

What a deal this was. The stainless steel boom vang, and 3 cheek blocks for the mainsail reef points on the boom, cost about $525. Well worth it when you consider what these things normally go for, and the amount of control one of these babies gives you over the mainsail shape. The only problem was the fitting for the boom was the wrong shape. I had given them the spec sheet of the boom, but they used the top instead of the bottom. An honest mistake considering that I didn't specify which was which. The good news is that I had a little talk with the 3/16" thick piece of stainless steel, and it decided that it should modify itself to the shape I needed it, perfect. I am so glad that I made the leap to pick this up. It was the one thing that all the experienced cruisers convinced me to get.

That's about it for now. We are headed to Kingston tomorrow. I have a $2200+ order to pick up at Marine Outfitters. They have been absolutely awesome to deal with. I ordered almost everything I could think of that we are going to need to finish the boat, even if I didn't need it yet. At the boat show one of the stainless fabricators told me how to bend my own steel tubes for our bimini, so I am going to give that a try. I ordered all the stainless tubing I need for mounting the solar panels as well, whisker pole, more polycarbonate wine glasses, just a ton of stuff. But today its going to get to +10 degrees, so a long walk must be in order. We can't work all the time, jeese.

Later......